Taking a deep breath, she got into the empty cabin. She was about to press the button for the fifth floor when she saw it. Alfo Investment. A tiny brass plate beside the button for the seventh floor. She should have realized that sooner, even though she hadn’t had another chance actually to see the plate. Nadia’s appointment that had been shifted to Tuesday came to mind. That meant it was pretty likely Nadia would come to swap her Alfa for the Porsche. It was a reflex action to press the button for the underground garage.
Not long afterwards she was walking briskly along the rows of parked cars. There was still the odd free space. Eventually she found the white sports car behind one of the massive concrete pillars, next to a green Golf, beside which was a blue Mercedes. One space was free, then came the next pillar. And over the four spaces was written on the white wall: “Alfo Investment”.
She recognized the dark-blue Mercedes, she’d ridden in it once. It meant that the friendly fat man who’d driven her into town when she’d had the temperature must have been Philip Hardenberg. That Nadia’s employer of all people should have happened to be driving past the telephone box and stopped to help out of pure kindness of heart, she found hard to believe. But she did recall Nadia saying something about an acquaintance. It wasn’t important just at the moment.
Almost automatically a bloody scene unrolled inside her head. A woman going towards her car, her double appearing from behind the pillar, a cudgel or, even better, an iron rod in her hand. A well-aimed blow and the woman by the car collapses, her head streaming with blood. The murderer prises the car keys out of her hand, opens the boot and heaves the dead body into it.
She could have spent hours standing by the pillar developing the scenario, but at least the thought did help her deal with her impotent fury. After what seemed like an eternity she returned to the lift, went up to the fifth floor and entered the offices of Behringer and Partners. Frau Luici’s initial smile turned into a wondering frown as she enquired, “And what can I do for you, Frau?…”
“Lasko,” she said. “I’d like to speak to Herr Reincke.”
“Have you an appointment?”
“No.” She returned the smile in Nadia’s manner and took the invitation she’d written herself out of her bag. “But I do have this.”
Frau Luici took the letter and glanced through it, muttering, “I don’t understand.” She hadn’t tried to forge Behringer’s signature. Frau Luici noticed it was missing, looked up at her and said. “It’s not signed.”
“Precisely,” she said. “I’d like to know whether it’s just a mistake or someone’s playing a joke on me. Can I speak to Herr Reincke?”
“Of course,” said Frau Luici. She stood up, trotted over to Herr Reincke’s office, knocked briefly, opened the door, cleared her throat and said, “Have you a moment, Herr Reincke? I have a lady here. There appears to have been another mess-up.”
Two minutes later she was sitting across the desk from nice Herr Reincke. He looked somewhat unsure of himself. Whether the invitation to a further interview was the cause or the confrontation with someone he hadn’t expected to see again, was hard to say. One thing was certain: he found her appearance in his office embarrassing. “Yes,” he said eventually. “Unfortunately, Herr Behringer isn’t in the office today. He hasn’t mentioned it to me. Perhaps it would be best if you were to make an appointment…”
God, she hadn’t considered the possibility of Behringer being there! She quickly plucked the letter out of Herr Reincke’s hand and explained, “That will not be necessary. I haven’t come to discuss my salary expectations with Herr Behringer. I would have been delighted to do so, but in the meantime I have obtained a well-paid position with Alfo Investment - or Philip Hardenberg, if that means more to you.”
Reincke nodded. He ran his eyes over her clothes. She’d taken her blazer off and laid it across her lap, letting the lining show - and the label, which indicated it wasn’t from some cheap high-street store. “I found the letter amusing,” she went on, “but that’s not what brings me to you. You perhaps remember that my knowledge of foreign languages is deficient?”
Reincke nodded again and waited.
“My mother has suddenly fallen ill,” she said. “Among her things I found a letter, in French. I can hardly understand a word and I wondered if you would help me translate it.” As she spoke, she slipped the Behringer invitation back in her bag and took out her copy of Jacques mon chéri. Glancing through the first lines, Reincke informed her that there were gaps in the text.
“I know,” she said. “But I don’t need a complete translation, I just need to know what it’s about.”
She followed her words with a deliberately artificial looking smile as she told him her father had died years ago but now she had the impression her mother had managed to find some consolation.
Reincke nodded again and returned to the letter. He furrowed his brow in concentration as he began to read, now and then murmuring a few words, which she could make nothing of. After a while he read on in silence, apparently gripped by what he was reading. “Yes,” he said eventually, looking as embarrassed as he had at the beginning. “I don’t think this letter was written after your father died. I think perhaps the best thing would be for you to discuss it with your mother.”
Assuming an expression of deep mourning, she whispered, “I’m afraid that’s no longer possible, Herr Reincke.”
“Well, then,” he began hesitantly. “My French isn’t perfect and the letter’s rather fragmentary, but if I understand it correctly, your mother’s asking for a reconciliation. She deeply regrets what she’s done and reminds him of the wonderful times they had together when they were young. She knows he’s split up with Alina and thinks that is an opportunity for them to get back together again. She’s says she’s very unhappy in her marriage, her husband has absolutely no understanding of her needs. She would leave him if he - I assume that’s Jacques - could forgive her. Is that enough?”
“Yes. Thank you very much.” She took back the sheet of paper. “You’ve been very helpful.”
He blushed like a schoolboy on his first date. “You’re welcome,” he said. “And you really don’t want to talk to Herr Behringer? I could get you an—”
She broke in quickly. “No, it’s really not necessary.”
“Then I’ll do it for you. We can’t just ignore this. The only explanation I can think of is that the new typist forgot—”
She broke in again. “Good Lord, no! I don’t want to get the poor thing into trouble. It will just have been a slip. That kind of thing can easily happen in the first few weeks.”
“It should not happen,” Reincke declared firmly. “And Herr Behringer could hardly have expressed himself more clearly. I’m glad he’s changed his…” He broke off and started again. “I wasn’t happy with his decision. Before the interview we were in agreement regarding your appointment. Then suddenly Herr Behringer decided to give an opportunity to a young woman with excellent foreign languages who was looking for her first job. But when it comes down to it, I’m the one who has to sort things out after her.”
“Please,” she said, trying to stop him seeing Behringer about it, “it’s not that serious. As I said, in the meantime I’ve—”
Reincke raised his hand and shook his head firmly. “Your desire to protect the young woman does you credit, Frau Lasko. But something has to be done. The letter to you is not the only blunder we’ve had in the last few weeks.”
“In that case,” she said, holding out her hand. She preferred not to think of Behringer’s reaction. Much more important than the six-foot giant’s possible telephone call to Philip Hardenberg - “Just imagine, that Lasko woman turned up here” - was Michael’s reaction to his wife’s letter to Jacques, mon chéri.
Reincke took her hand and shook it. She went to the door and before he knew what was happening she’d left his office, nodded to Frau Luici and shot out of reception. In her mind she ticked off item number one. Item number two was the telepho
ne in Jasmin Toppler’s flat, item number three a meeting with Michael. She was sure she could persuade him to agree to that.
She took her time going home. Now neither the drizzle nor the unpleasant cold wind bothered her. Reincke’s translation had improved her chances. “I can convince him there’s a faithful version of his wife.” And Michael didn’t have to go back to the lab until Wednesday. It was all falling out nicely. At the moment Nadia was probably on her way to the rearranged appointment. From what she remembered of the man’s suggestion, Nadia was probably meeting him around midday.
Back in Kettlerstrasse she just went to her flat for long enough to get Jasmin Toppler’s key. She made sure Heller wasn’t around, then slipped across. “Good morning, Herr Trenkler. My name won’t mean anything to you, but my face will. I know you have some free time today and I hope we can meet. Don’t say no, it’s very important. It concerns your wife.” Either that, or: “Hi, darling. He didn’t turn up. I’m in the Opera Café, do you fancy coming over? I’ve a surprise for you.” She was only going to decide which version when she heard his voice. She was confident she would be able to tell what kind of a mood he was in from the sound of his voice.
The planned revenge was followed by a shock as, after the second ring, Nadia’s “Trenkler” rattled her eardrum. Her finger shot out and broke the connection. Half-past twelve! She refused to believe Nadia had met the caller with the harsh-sounding voice in the morning. She waited half an hour. Then she tried a second time. Again it was Nadia who replied and again she hung up without a word. The sensible thing to do would have been to go back to her own flat and wait until three or four before trying once more. But she couldn’t bring herself to do that. Instead she watered Jasmin’s plants and did a little dusting. She stuck it out until two, then tried for the third time.
Again it was Nadia who replied. By this time she was sounding nervous. “Hello? Hello? Who is that calling? Say something.”
She was about to hang up again, when she heard his voice in the background. “Is it that joker again, darling?”
“I don’t know,” Nadia said.
“Give it to me,” he said. And then he was speaking to her. “You have exactly two seconds left to say what you want. Then I’m going to hang up and after that no one will lift the receiver again. A hundred and one, a hundred and two - that’s it.”
Before she could even clear her throat, the line went dead. “Darling” went round and round in her head, like a cruel echo. Well, there were other ways. She could write to him at the lab. She managed to get back to her flat unseen and spent the rest of the day drafting a letter. The writing pad she kept for job applications was getting thinner and thinner. No words were good enough for him. After all, there were things you could only say to someone face to face. Finally she thought of directory enquiries. It was dark on the stairs but she didn’t switch on the light, just left her door open. When, a little later, she closed the door to Jasmin Toppler’s flat again, she was reasonably content.
She didn’t get much sleep that Tuesday night, she kept waking with a start from terrible dreams. Finally an early train brought her back to the dreariness of the real world. She looked at the alarm clock. Six o’clock. Michael would be getting up, going to the shower. He didn’t bother with breakfast. She cuddled up under the blankets and followed him in her mind’s eye through the splendour of white to the garage. After a good hour she decided he’d be in the lab, so she got up, had a shower, dressed and crept to her neighbour’s door once more.
Like Heller’s, Jasmin’s flat looked out onto the street. The telephone was on a little table right next to the living-room window. From the third floor the street could only be seen by leaning out of the window, but the street corner, round which the telephone box was, could be seen from beside the table.
She dialled the number she’d obtained from directory enquiries the previous evening. A porter at the switchboard answered, listened to her request and said, “I’m putting you through.” Music came from the receiver, interrupted now and then by a soft female voice: “Thank you for your patience. Please hold the line.”
Her patience quickly grew thin. The muzak got on her nerves. Her eye wandered along the buildings across the road to the street corner. Once more the woman’s voice thanked her for her patience, but before it could ask her to hold the line it was interrupted by the matter-of-fact voice of the porter asking her again what she wanted. Again she asked to be put through to Michael Trenkler, pointing out that she’d already been waiting on hold for some time.
The porter simply said, “I’m putting you through,” and the little tune came back. A fat man of medium height appeared at the street corner and stood there. She paid no attention to him but drummed her fingers impatiently on the little table. She was starting to get worried about Jasmin Toppler’s telephone bill. It might be a good idea to anticipate her surprise with a few euros and an explanation. “I needed to telephone urgently and the box had been vandalized again.”
While she was thinking about that, her gaze automatically went back to the street corner. Now the fat man wasn’t alone any more, he was talking to a woman in a sand-coloured trouser suit who was wearing a headscarf and large sunglasses. Before she could get a closer look, the woman went round the corner. The man started to walk, came closer, then crossed over the street and thus disappeared from view. And for the third time the porter asked her what she wanted. In an irritated tone she told him, “You’ve already tried to put me through twice. I’ve been waiting for ages.”
“Not everyone’s in their office yet,” the porter said. “Perhaps you could try again later.”
“No, now,” she insisted. “I don’t want to speak to someone in an office. I need to speak to Michael Trenkler. Please put me through to his lab.”
The porter remained a model of porterly detachment. “Which department, please?”
“I don’t know exactly, but he works with a Herr Kemmerling. Please, it really is very urgent.”
She heard the porter asking, “Hey, Heinz, Trenkler and Kemmerling, have you any idea which lab they’re in?”
“Thirty-eight,” a voice replied. “If no one answers, try seventy-four. They had a computer crash last week, it could be that they’ve…”
She stopped listening to the discussion coming from the receiver. Something was happening down in the street. Now the woman was back at the corner and looking towards the building. The wind was tugging at her headscarf. And those large, dark glasses - on such a dull day.
“I’m putting you through,” the porter said. And a door nearby was closed. Her door! Two seconds later the woman at the street corner took a mobile out of her jacket pocket.
There was no reply from extension thirty-eight. She wouldn’t have dared to speak anyway. Someone was in her flat and talking to Nadia on the phone. The walls were thin. She’d heard Jasmin often enough. At first the voice from her flat just came as a murmur, but suddenly it grew louder. “I’m not blind and the place isn’t that large. Why didn’t you keep your big mouth shut, you stupid bitch? Couldn’t you let her have her little moment of pleasure? After all, you’re getting your money’s worth too.”
The man in her flat must be Philip Hardenberg. She might have recognized him sooner, but not at that distance, especially as she’d only seen him once before, and that when she’d been running a temperature. He was urging Nadia to leave. “Off you go. Get on with it!” The last thing she heard him say was, “Don’t worry, I’ll see to that. I think I can manage a convincing heart attack.”
Without being aware it, she whispered “Shit” half a dozen times in Jasmin’s living room. She only realized she’d spoken out loud when she heard steps going down the stairs. She didn’t dare look out of the window, they might see her. Despite Hardenberg’s command, Nadia was still at the corner. After a couple of minutes he reappeared down in the street. Then they both left.
Her brain was awhirl with questions and answers. What had Hardenberg been looking for in her fl
at? Immediately Nadia’s threat came to mind: she’d snapped her fingers. How had he got in? With a duplicate of the key she’d forgotten to take out of her handbag last Thursday. And it wasn’t only the man at the airport Nadia had an intimate relationship with. Nadia surely wouldn’t have allowed Hardenberg to call her a stupid bitch if they were no more than just business partners.
She didn’t bother with the call to extension seventy-four. Either Nadia had drawn the correct conclusion from her silent phone calls the previous day or - and she would have bet the whole of her mother’s nest egg on it - she’d been informed about her visit to Behringer and Partners. Nadia probably even knew the favour nice Herr Reincke had done her. And to stop anything going any further, she’d snapped her fingers. A heart attack! The words sent a tingle of ice through her veins. If she’d been in her flat - or gone to the callbox: that was the direction the two of them had come from.
She stayed in Jasmin’s flat for another hour, spending the first ten minutes looking through the classified directory then calling a locksmith. Only when she heard the bell ring next door and had checked that there was a van with the firm’s name on it down in the street, did she go out. The door to her flat was open. It hadn’t been forced open, as the locksmith quickly established.
It cost a small fortune to have a new lock installed and a chain fitted. Once the locksmith had left, she gave the new key a double turn and put the chain on, then checked every corner. There was no sign that Philip Hardenberg had been doing anything other than looking for her.
It was about midday before she noticed that the three letters from Nadia were no longer in the cupboard. The envelope with the Alfo Investment document she’d pieced together and the notes she’d made for her own safety had also disappeared, as had the pile of photos of Nadia’s house and surroundings. But Nadia’s faithful servant had ignored the fat envelope containing all the printouts with “Postage to be paid by addressee” on the front and “From: Dieter Lasko” on the back. He’d probably assumed it contained documents connected with her divorce. The fragmentary letter to Jacques, mon chéri, the note of his mobile number and the copy of the tape were still in it.
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